Ireland to contribute €16 billion more than it receives to EU in next 7 years

Podge_irl

The EU can't "take" anything. It accepts pooling of sovereignty and resources in areas that its member states agree to.

Graham

According to the Dept of Finance between 1973 and 2018 Ireland had a net benefit of over €40 billion.

I think we're doing ok in the deal so far even if you completely ignore the benefits of EU membership.

FutureTeashock

Podge_irl wrote: »

The EU can't "take" anything. It accepts pooling of sovereignty and resources in areas that its member states agree to.

What bollocks! They are turning the screw on Ireland's corporate tax rate and Ireland is powerless to stop it. Just watch.

Podge_irl

FutureTeashock wrote: »

What bollocks! They are turning the screw on Ireland's corporate tax rate and Ireland is powerless to stop it. Just watch.

Seem to recall an EU court recently that ruled in Ireland's favour. Odd definition of powerless.

Taxation rates are not a competency of the EU. They can not claim that competency unless it is given to them. It can not be given to them in Ireland except by means of a referendum.

Diplomatic pressure can be put on Ireland, though how on earth anyone could think there would be less diplomatic pressure put on Ireland outside the EU is beyond me. We would have no leverage to counteract it in that scenario. I would have thought Brexit would have shown people that at its heart the EU is a rules based organisation. The rules are clear and incredibly accessible for all to see if they want to find them.

TallGlass2

Transformation. FFS in parts of Ireland you haven't even got a Broadband connection.

Spain, Italy or Portugal are hardly classed as poor and needing infrastructure upgrades.

Doesn't seem very fair to me, looks more like a raw deal giving 16 Billion.

FutureTeashock

Podge_irl wrote: »

Seem to recall an EU court recently that ruled in Ireland's favour. Odd definition of powerless.

Taxation rates are not a competency of the EU. They can not claim that competency unless it is given to them. It can not be given to them in Ireland except by means of a referendum.

Diplomatic pressure can be put on Ireland, though how on earth anyone could think there would be less diplomatic pressure put on Ireland outside the EU is beyond me. We would have no leverage to counteract it in that scenario. I would have thought Brexit would have shown people that at its heart the EU is a rules based organisation. The rules are clear and incredibly accessible for all to see if they want to find them.

"Yes, you read it correctly, the Commission will consider adopting tax proposals using Article 116 of the Lisbon Treaty... tax matters are a national competence, this seems to be a trick to avoid unanimity in adopting or changing EU tax rules."

https://mnetax.com/eu-commission-tax-package-includes-review-of-tax-law-approval-process-vat-reform-39449

Oops

forgottenhills

What I think is wrong with this scheme is the nature of the funding. Rather than funding coming from one country to another (robbing Peter to pay Paul) the ECB should have been mandated to print money (quantitative easing) in this economic crisis situation and to use these bonds to fund individual country regeneration schemes. So countries like Ireland wouldn't have to stump up these funds and in doing so cause internal austerity.

This (QE) is what the US has been doing for years now to battle economic crises and the US economy has been much more robust in creating employment than the EU as a whole. And before the monetarists jump in with their inflation concerns this feared inflation hasn't happened to assets in the economy - as long as the money is kept away from the banks to fund more and property investment/speculation.

fly_agaric

fly_agaric wrote: »

We've always battled at EU level to keep our cozy arrangements with the multinationals and ability to give them a good tax rate in exchange for jobs and revenue. People can get very touchy about our rights regarding it (I recall a thread about Apple recently...). Can hardly cry when it makes us a bit of an outlier and distorts GDP of our economy, resulting in larger contribution to the EU budget. You cannot have it every way.
Moreso than Germany our prosperity depends on the easy access to wider EU market for what is produced here (among other things).

edit: not your post so much, but the hypocrisy and selfishness of some of the posts on this thread is quite breathtaking!

I don't see how you can be talking about hypocrisy here as I pay my taxes in another state and those that taxes are higher than they should be if Ireland weren't operating as a tax haven within the trading union.

Mr. Karate

Mr. Karate wrote: »

I don't mind contributing, but not €16 Billion. We're not in a position to pay that much at this time. We're also ****ed because of the Eu's One size fits all economic policy. They're part of the reason for the Country excessive debt. Not just because of FF/FG's fecklessness.

No, were ****ed because we ****ed up. Primarily the property bubble and banking mixed with massive spending by the public and a devil may care attitude towards prudence.

The eu dragged is from a ****hole with no money, debt that was growing annually, high unemployment and a drugs epidemic to a place where we have infrastructure, education, good employment, one of the highest incomes in the EU and an income that could and should have completely wiped our national debt in the early part of the noughties.

When we crashed in 2007ish, it was on us. Not the eu. Largely private banks and builders and a false economy that we all bought into cause we needed that Spanish summer house.

I might also add that 16 billion isn't actually a lot and since of it comes directly back.

Patrick2010

Fred Cryton wrote: »

Do people who like to bring up our national debt realise that every country in the world other than oil rich Norway have an enormous national debt, often well exceeding ours as a percentage of national income?

Interesting, is there a link to showing where we are relative to other European countries?

FutureTeashock

What I love about the British public is they never caved in despite intense efforts to stop Brexit over 3 years.

We got it right twice but fell at the first hurdle both times.

Now we're locked in to the gulag.

davetherave

Patrick2010 wrote: »

Interesting, is there a link to showing where we are relative to other European countries?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/269684/national-debt-in-eu-countries-in-relation-to-gross-domestic-product-gdp/

Podge_irl

forgottenhills wrote: »

What I think is wrong with this scheme is the nature of the funding. Rather than funding coming from one country to another (robbing Peter to pay Paul) the ECB should have been mandated to print money (quantitative easing) in this economic crisis situation and to use these bonds to fund individual country regeneration schemes. So countries like Ireland wouldn't have to stump up these funds and in doing so cause internal austerity.

That is what they are doing. The EU is going to raise the funds centrally for the Covid fund through bond buying. Inevitably it will work its way back to the member states in some form and to some amount anyway. We are paying more into the EU regardless as we are one of the most prosperous nations in the EU.

If you mean general EU funding, then they can't issue debt without some means to pay it back so we have the same issue.

Podge_irl

FutureTeashock wrote: »

"Yes, you read it correctly, the Commission will consider adopting tax proposals using Article 116 of the Lisbon Treaty... tax matters are a national competence, this seems to be a trick to avoid unanimity in adopting or changing EU tax rules."

https://mnetax.com/eu-commission-tax-package-includes-review-of-tax-law-approval-process-vat-reform-39449

Oops

The EU has no competency over member state tax rates. Stories such as this have been bandied about for years.

Richard Hillman

The EU has been good for Ireland. Past tense.

The EU is not going to be good for Ireland. It is costing us a lot of money for very little reward. Time to end this nonsense. Create a mass withdrawal and replace it with a free trade and free movement treaty.

Podge_irl

Richard Hillman wrote: »

The EU has been good for Ireland. Past tense.

The EU is not going to be good for Ireland. It is costing us a lot of money for very little reward. Time to end this nonsense. Create a mass withdrawal and replace it with a free trade and free movement treaty.

So the billions in corporate tax and tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of directly employed people and hundreds of thousands in secondary industries relying on them that all comes from FDI reliant on our access to Europe is "little reward"?

Since joining the EU our exports to the UK have dropped from near 50% to little over 10%. That's a "little reward"?

Again, one would think the insanity of the UK and Brexit at the moment would highlight this issue, but it doesn't seem to be doing the job.

10000maniacs

Fred Cryton wrote: »

So we become rich by receiving huge amounts of EU funds over the years and having free access to the EU single market, and now simpletons are complaining because we now have to be a net contributor?

We should be immensely proud of this. Remember many countries didn't want us to join in 1973 because we were considered too poor. Now we contribute more than Austria because we are a wealthy country. That is remarkable.

Also shows how far Italy has fallen - they have historically been a big net contributor.

And idiots are happy and proud that we are paying exponentially more of our fair share than we should be.

Richard Hillman

Richard Hillman wrote: »

The EU has been good for Ireland. Past tense.

The EU is not going to be good for Ireland. It is costing us a lot of money for very little reward. Time to end this nonsense. Create a mass withdrawal and replace it with a free trade and free movement treaty.

Yes, the little island of 5 million in the Atlantic is sure to dominate this new world order!

4068ac1elhodqr

One interesting factor, will be the French elections April 2022.

They've (France) have actually overtaken Greece (which is saying something), as the next favourite to leave (after Italy of course).
Macron is quickly loosing popularity.

10000maniacs

listermint wrote: »

This is one of those threads


Isn't it.


They come along often and I struggle to see where our free education went to.

If "isn't it" is a question, where is the question mark? Free education indeed.

listermint

Richard Hillman wrote: »

The EU has been good for Ireland. Past tense.

The EU is not going to be good for Ireland. It is costing us a lot of money for very little reward. Time to end this nonsense. Create a mass withdrawal and replace it with a free trade and free movement treaty.

Lolcopter flying over your house this evening .

listermint

10000maniacs wrote: »

If "isn't it" is a question, where is the question mark? Free education indeed.

Busy in the grammar house this evening evidently.


Z zzzzzz

ExMachina1000

Does this include the 10 billion hole in the EU budget from the UK leaving?

10000maniacs

listermint wrote: »

Busy in the grammar house this evening evidently.


Z zzzzzz

I don't know what free education had to do with the topic in hand either. Yet you brought it up.

Graham

10000maniacs wrote: »

And idiots are happy and proud that we are paying exponentially more of our fair share than we should be.

€40 billion - € 16 billion

Won't we be somewhere in the region of what €24 billion up at the end of this 7 year budget?

10000maniacs

Graham wrote: »

€40 billion - € 16 billion

Won't we be somewhere in the region of what €24 billion up at the end of this 7 year budget?

€40 billion = spent money.
€16 billion = new money.
Money we got 30 or 40 years ago is irrelevant.

4068ac1elhodqr

With the uk leaving (and Italy/France getting nervous) how will the bloc’s looming biggest single expansion in two decades be paid for?

Maybe a money-tree planting program will ensure along the forests of the Western Balkans (WB6), and the digging of a wishing well for golden nuggets over in Albania.

Graham

10000maniacs wrote: »

€40 billion = spent money.
€16 billion = new money.
Money we got 30 or 40 years ago is irrelevant.

Didn't you mention something about 'fair share' quite recently

namloc1980

Fred Cryton wrote: »

So we become rich by receiving huge amounts of EU funds over the years and having free access to the EU single market, and now simpletons are complaining because we now have to be a net contributor?

We should be immensely proud of this. Remember many countries didn't want us to join in 1973 because we were considered too poor. Now we contribute more than Austria because we are a wealthy country. That is remarkable.

Also shows how far Italy has fallen - they have historically been a big net contributor.

Us having to prop up dysfunctional economies in Spain and Italy is nothing to celebrate. We got our house in order after the last crisis and the reward is to cough up billions to support Spain and Italy. And wait until the Balkan countries come knocking for a few billion in the next expansion.

10000maniacs

Graham wrote: »

Didn't you mention something about 'fair share' quite recently

I think we paid most of the balance of that equation when the EU precluded the Irish from imposing haircuts on unguaranteed bondholders of insolvent banks.
The cost in hardship to this nation is still being felt today.